Assess The Contribution Of Marxism Essay

832 words - 4 pages

Sociology essay

Intro
Assess the contribution of Marxism to our understanding of families and household. Marxism is the political and economic theory formed by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels.
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” – Karl Marx
He is trying to say religion is the drug of people. It’s what keeps them alive in these wretched times. The oppressed creatures are the lower classed people forced to work every day just to feed their families. The heartless world are the capitalist, the selfish rich people who have never labored a day in their life. The soulless ...view middle of the document...

The only way to secure the rightful heirs was to have a nuclear family according to Engels. In Engels view the Nuclear family represented a defeat of the female sex. Women were seen as an instrument for the production of children. Overthrowing capitalism meant freedom for women. With liberation, there will be no need to pass down property through generations.
Eli Zaretsky
Zaretskys believes that the nuclear family is an accomplice to the capitalist system. Zaretsky is implying that the function of the housewife is to reproduce the next generation of workers. Marxism sees ‘labor power’ through reproduction. Along with giving property to the next male heir, the capitalists wanted workers to keep the capitalism alive for the next generation. This also prepares the heirs to be subservient giving them good leadership skills for the future. By giving them these things, they will not rebel against capitalism in the future.
Zaretskys second point is about consumption as a unit. This is when we as a unit buy luxurious goods to fuel capitalism. We can try as hard as we want as socialists, we can never get rid of capitalism. An example of this point is pester power. This is when children have particular techniques to get what they want off their parents. This is effective for capitalism because parents never want to disappoint their children. Thus fueling capitalism.

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